Sunday, November 18, 2018

Date to refute the propaganda that perpetuates the myth that Kashmiri Pandits were elite exploitative class of the state of Jammu and Kashmir.

Year 1921

Total KP population: 55055
30947 Male +24108 Female

Working Male: 17919Working Female: 1389 Dependents: 35744

People whose primary means of income was cultivation:

Male: 4376
Female: 731

People who worked as Agents/Managers/Forest officers, their clerks, rent collectors:
Male: 294

Field Labourers/Woodcutters:

Male: 2

Herders/Milkmen/Livestock:

Male: 4

Artisan and other workmen:

Male: 272
Female: 339

Transport Owner/Manager:

Male: 10

Labourer/boatmen/palki carrier:

Male: 68

Traders:

Male: 2070
Female: 12

People whose Principal means of income was State Service:

Male: 3844
Female: 31

People who had State job as a means of additional income:

Male: 481
Female: 1

People who had some other means of income on top of State job:

Male: 208
Female:5

People holding Religious Posts:

Male: 74

Lawyer/Doctor/Teacher:

Male: 57

Other Jobs:

Male: 129
Female: 1

Living on their incomes from the funds:

Male: 98
Female: 4

Employed in Domestic service:

Male: 1742
Female: 46

Contractors/Clerks/ Cashiers:

Male: 51

Labourers:
Male: 47
Female: 4

Beggars/Criminals/in jail

Male: 80
Female: 3

People who earned from Land:

Male: 1025
Female: 214

Commissioned Gazetted Officer in Public Force:

Male: 1

Gazetted Officer in Public Administration:Male: 6

Other Public Administration:

Male: 2970
Female: 3Literacy ratesTotal KP population: 55055

Total Literate: 14,740
of them 14456 Male and 284 Female

Total Illiterate: 40,303
of them 16, 479 Male and Female 23824.

Literate in English: 5,154.
of them 5104 Male and 50 Female

That means 73.21 % of KPs were illiterate (53% of Males were illiterate). That should puncture the myth (that even KPs like to boast): KPs were highly educated class.

However, the edge was only with the 9.36% English literate KPs among 55055 and 34.97 % among the KP literates. No other community had more number in this category.

To compare: There were only 5231 educated KMs in the state with their population of 796392. Of them only 340 knew English and among them only 5 woman knew English.

Things were to change from KPs and KMs in the next decade.

Year 1931

In 1931, Kashmiri Pandit population increased by 14.6 percent. Though it might sound high. The total increase in number was only 8056. From 55055 it moved to 63088. Number of educated people among KPs increased by 31.9 percent.

It is claimed in myths that KMs were deliberately kept uneducated by the Maharaja (and some even claim by KPs), however, the reason for illiteracy among Muslims is explained in the 1931 report:

"The backwardness of Muslims is the result of their concentration on the soils which does not permit the agriculturist to devote sufficient time and energy for his personal education or the education of his children."

Yet, efforts were made to get them educated. In the State, the number of schools doubled from 670 in 1921 to 1246 in 1931. [Shri Pratap College, Srinagar gave Rs 1500 scholarship for Muslims and Prince of Wales College, Jammu gave Rs 3000.]

The census report says on the progress among KMs.

"The community that has evinced the keenest interest in augmenting its ranks of literates in beyond doubt the Kashmiri Muslim. In population they have added only 70 persons to 100 of their strength but in literacy they have more than quadrupled the number. "

Their population increased by 69.7 % (this drastic increase partly because "Hajjams" started entering Kashmiri Muslim as their caste) to 1352822 from 796392. The number of literate increased by 313.4 percent.

According to the report:

"When we look to absolute figures only without reference to the population of each caste the Kashmiri Muslims show the highest number of literates viz. 21,639, followed by Kashmiri Pandits with 18,915"

In 1921 there were only 5231 literate KMs while in 1931 the number grew to 18,915, the biggest absolute number in the state,

In 1921 there were only 5 English literate KMs per 10000 of their population. In 1931, the number became 25. That's an increase of 20%.

Yet, in case of Srinagar city (whose population increased by 22.5 % from 1921 to 1931) we read:

"The total number of literates in the city of Srinagar is 17,575 out of which 16,480 are males and 1,095 females. The proportion of literates per mille [1000] of the total population of the city is 101 being 174 for males and 14 for females. If we exclude population below 5 the proportions would rise to 117 for persons, 198 for males and 16 for females. Amongst Hindus, the proportion of literates works out to 344 while amongst Muslims it dwindles down to 39. The obvious reason is that the Hindus in the city are mostly Kashmiri Pandits or outsiders attracted by the prospects of trade to whom literacy is the one thing needful for conducting their business. The Kashmiri Pandits as already stated have a very high degree of literacy because of the traditions amongst them of following Government service as their calling in life. The Muslims on the other hand are devoted to indigenous arts and crafts which though more paying do not demand literacy as a pre-requisite."

The KPs still had the advantage in English in the entire state. For KPs there was an increase of 50 percent. From 1045 per 10000 in 1921 it grew to 1588 in 1931.

The report records: "The Kashmiri Pandits hold an enviable position in the State in the matter of English literacy having 1588 literates per 10000 of the population. Their males have a much higher proportion viz 2, 789. The Kashmiri Pandit is by tradition a Government servant for which the requisite equipment is a knowledge of the English language to which he has turned in a greater measure than any other caste."

Still, for every 1000 KP men 635 were literates and 365 illiterates. Over all the number stood at 369 per 1000. Other communities were of course worse than KPs, but Khatris (386/1000) were better than KPs in literary. Even in the field of female literacy they were better place. They had 178 literate females per thousand compared to (24 for KPs, 22 for Sheikhs , 21 for Brahmins, 1 for Kashmiri Muslims)

Now, let's see what did this "tradition of Government service " for KPs meant in numbers.

In 1931, there were 13133 total people in Public Administration and 12265 in State service

According to census, for every 1000 employees in State Service, about 305.9 were KP men and for every 100 woman employees in State Service, only 1 Female was KP woman. Overall, we can say 70% of State service comprised of other communities.

This is the complete breakdown for KPs.

For every 1000 people employed in these fields, following were KPs:

State Service:

305.9

Exploitation of animals and vegetation :

287.9

Industry:

18.6

Transport

4.8

Trade

149.9

Public Force

19.0

Public Administration

1.5

Arts and Professions

73.2

Persons living on their income

20.1

Domestic service

98.7

Insufficiently described occupations

27.7

Beggars, criminals and inmates of Jails

2.7

The report noticed, "The Kashmiri Pandits are gradually relinquishing their ideal of Government service and turning to trade and even manual labour in increasing numbers."

Then there is the question of unemployment. If KPs were spending so much effort getting education. was it rewarding?

"The unemployed who possess a higher qualification than that of a matric are 289 only exclusive of 73 unemployed who are below 20 years of age. Of these 226 are Brahmans and 26 other Hindus. The Muslims number 37 only. It is very much in the fitness of things that the Brahman who inherits traditions of learning from the past should be most exposed to the uncertainty of employment. The Muslims and others who have a stake in the land naturally do not take to education keenly especially when the education provided in schools and colleges is of a purely literary nature and does not enable the bookish student to pursue any calling except that of a clerk in Government service without further training."

This provides the backdrop form Roti agitation that city KPs launched in 1932 in response to Glancy commission that among other things sought to lower the requirement for Government jobs. This would have mean all the decade that KPs spent preparing for government job would have been wasted. KMs who by number were already most populous literate group with 21,639 would have been rightly seen as a threat by18,915 literate Kashmiri Pandits. It must have dawned on KPs that their future is at stake. 21,639 was a negligible number given the total population of KMs who were still into land and trade but for 18,915 KPs out of total 55055, the math looked fearful enough . How much of these fears were triggered by census itself is not hard to guess. Just like today Census becomes a political game, back then also in Kashmir, Census data was a political tool.

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Overall, if KPs were the exploitative class, there are probably the only exploitative class in the world in which majority of the people belonging to this class were not working in privileged positions. And KPs would be the only exploitative class whose population showed no drastic increase in population dues to all the "exploitation" they were doing.

In 1941 census, the practice of giving data specific to KPs was put to an end. However, in the report we read, there were 76,868 Kashmiri Pandits in the state in 1941. And:

"Most of the Kashmiri Pandits are residents of Srinagar; over 62,000 live in the Anantnag District in which Srinagar City is situated. Another 11,000 were recorded in Baramulla District. The figures do not exceed a thousand in any other district except Jammu which has 1,367."

Sunday, November 11, 2018

The figures of Buddha and Avalokitesvara on the wooden cover of birchbark manuscript discovered by Pandit Madhusudan Kaul Shastri in 1938 from Naupore in Gilgit where earlier the same spot had yielded in 1931 the now famous "Gilgit Manuscript". The painting is dated between 7th-9th century and shows influence of Gandhara (the way physique is drawn), Ajanta (the way eyes are drawn) and Pala Bengal school (the way headdress and face is drawn). At the feet of the deities can be the patrons who look and dress like Central Asians.

Saturday, November 10, 2018

"The relief illustrated in Plate XII was found on the site of Huskapura (modern Ushkur), near Baramula in Kashmir, by Father de Ruyter of the Church Mission School at Baramula [around 1915]. The slab, which is on exhibition in the Fitler Pavilion, bears the equestrian portrait or effigy of a warrior armed with a bow carried on his left arm, a shield and sword on his right thigh, and a battle axe and a quiver full of arrows at his back; also apparently a mace is attached to the saddle. His costume consists of an under coat fastening on the proper right, and an over jacket fastened by straps in the centre; probably also of trousers and boots, but the feet are broken away. The horse is richly caparisoned and almost completely covered by a richly decorated cloth; it is guided by a bridle and bit. The incised inscription, in a late variety of Sārāda script known as Devāśeşa, is damaged; it is in corrupt Sanskrit and not quite intelligible. The date, however, is clearly legible and is ‘on Friday, the ninth, of the dark fortnight of Magha in the year 82.’ The era is not specified, but may be assumed to be the usual Saptarsi or Laukika era of other Kashmir Sārāda inscriptions, which era is usually recorded with omission of the centuries. The year 82 of the inscription would then correspond to the year 6 of one of the Christian centuries, and this century, to judge from the epigraphical peculiarities and the style of the relief was most likely the sixteenth, giving the date A.D. 1506. As to the epigraphy, it may be remarked that medial e is not represented by the stroke behind the consonant as was the case up to the time of Zainu’l-‘Abidīn, King of Kashmir from A.D. 1420-1470. The second line of the inscription which must have contained the name of some king or queen is unfortunately defective. The rest of the document records a gift of goods and animals (twenty khāris of paddy, two of wheat, eight oxen and five traks of coarse sugar); but the names of the donor and recipient are lost. The style of the sculpture is somewhat provincial, but it is of high interest as a rare and almost uniquely complete representation of contemporary military equipment. For much of the information given above I am indebted to Rai Bahadur Daya Ram Sahni, one of the most learned officers of the Archaeological Survey of India.

"Plate 231/ Harvard 1983. 620 recto Hindu Holy Men Artist: attributed to Govardhan Mughal school Circa 1630-1635 24,1 x 15,2 cm Watercolour on paper Private Collection, Courtesy of the Harvard University Art Museums. Govardhan’s miniature brings to life five Hindu holy men meditating beneath a neem tree near an early Kashmiri temple close to Srinagar, seen in the background. Each portrait represents a stage of life. In the foreground, a languid youth with a golden sea of curls reclines opposite the figure, a middle-aged sanyasi whose other-worldly gaze, self-grown shawl of long hair, and claw-like fingernails attest to his shedding of almost every mundane activity. To his left, sits an older devotee, whose expressive, disciplined face implies both intellectual power and spiritual grace. At the left of the miniature, momentarily distracted from his elevated state, a dark-bearded figure with a mala (rosary) and a turban wound from his own hair, looks out beyond the frame. Behind 124 the others reclines a holy man whose tense expression hints of troubled dreams. In the foreground, a fire smoulders, producing both warmth and the ashes worn instead of clothing by these aspiring saints. Nudes are rare in Mughal art, and most of those known to us depict holy men. Although the pose of the naked chela (apprentice) here was inspired by an engraving of Saint Chrysostom, interpreted as an Odalisque by the German printmaker Barthold Beham (1502-1540), Govardhan not only changed her sex but trimmed several years from her age. So convincing is the young sadhu that Govardhan’s adjustments to the western prototype must have been studied from life. Inasmuch as Prince Dārā Shikoh was so concerned with the varieties of religious personality, it is likely that this remarkable picture, one of Mughal art’s most serious investigations of the human spirits, was commissioned by him. Literature: we are grateful to Gauvin Bailey for discovering Barthold Beham’s prototype, for which see: Bartsch 1978, vol. XV [8], No. 43."

~ Indian Paintings in the St. Petersburg Muraqqa by Stewart Cary Welch, 1996

The hill and temple depicted is probably Shankaracharya of Srinagar, the iconic symbol from the city. Although Welch identifies the tree as Neem, however, Neem is not that common in Kashmir and certainly not a common motif for art around Kashmir. It is possible the tree depicted is Brimji (celtis australis/Nettle Tree). Brimji is a common tree near holy sites of Kashmiri Pandits, this shade providing tree is considered holy by Kashmiris.

Asoka and Shankaracharya hill by Abanindranath Tagore, 20th century

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Govardhan was the son of Bhavani Das, a minor painter in the Mughal imperial atelier. Govardhan began his career during the reign of Akbar. Govardhan was a Khanazad (born in family), house born slaves, trained since birth for service to royal family.

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The Penance of Saint John Chrysostom by Barthel Beham, (1502–1540) was a German engraver, miniaturist and painter.

• During eclipse, whatever the woman is doing...the baby will have its mark. If a woman picks knife...the child will have cut mark. If woman plays with fire...child will have burn mark. And so on. Stay indoors during eclipse. Muslims also believe in it. Muslim neighbours used to ask Pandits for the exact timing of eclipse, it used to be a giveaway that the lady is expecting a child.

• Generally stay indoors.

• Maag month (January/February) born sleep with half eye open.

• Ghat paksh born with slit eyes

• Mool: Baddest time according to Kashmiri Jantri (almanac) for giving birth

• Find someone who has thumb (Frozen neck). Get massaged (kari thumb) by pregnant woman. [My parents actually asked one of my friends if he needed massaging. It was embarrassing to say the least and infuriating. Had a little light with parents]

• Pregnant woman is not supposed to see a maharaj - groom

• She should generally not sit in the room with the entrance door, whoever visits the house should touch her head

• She is not supposed to be informed of any deaths. Pregnancy time generally a time of impurity.

Thursday, November 1, 2018

I like watching zombie movies, more macabre the better. Like many, I find in them a reflection of out times. My mother-in-law does not approve of my taste in cinema, she does not like the "shikas" movies I watch, specially at a time when her daughter is pregnant. Yet, one day while I was watching one such movie, she decided to tell me a folktale. I don't know the origin of the tale, but I have not heard anything like it and I think she told the story just to mess me up. Anyway, in service of literature and lost folklore of Kashmir, here it goes:

There was once a simple woodcutter who used to live in a forest with his wife. The couple used to frequently roam in the jungle looking for fine wood. Husband would cut while the wife would collect. One day, while going about the routine, woodcutter's wife started acting all weird. She called out to her husband and said to him,"I smell someone is roasting some fine meat nearby, I have an incredible urge to have this meat. Please, please, O' husband of mine fetch me the meat whose sweet whiff is making my stomach twitch." Poor woodcutter was all confused, he could barely smell anything. He tried to reason with his wife. "In this forest, who possibly could be cooking a meal of meat. What has gotten into you? I cannot smell anything." Wife persisted, "O' husband of mine fetch me the meat whose sweet whiff is making my stomach twitch." Woodcutter took in a deep one through the nose and could now smell the meat. "Even if someone was cooking, how can I get it for you?" Wife started crying, no rhyme or no reason. "What a useless husband I have? Wish I had married the butcher instead."Seeing the mad fervor in his loving wife's eyes, the woodcutter gave in and promised to fulfil this wish. Wife told him to go and not come empty handed or else he will see her dead face, she will put an axe to her throat. He asked her to head back hime while he would go looking for the barbeque chops. He followed the smell and after walking some distance, the woodcutter found himself in front of a funeral pyre. Someone had burnt a body in the forest. Woodcutter was saddened by the thought that he had come looking for this meat, this cage of a soul. He even laughed a bit now at her wife's stupid demand. However, since he had promised his mad wife a piece of roasted meat, he used his axe to fetch a piece from the fire. A shoulder, a limb, a heart or a liver, one could not tell, he just wrapped it in a piece of cloth and headed back home. "Surely, she would not eat it, if nothing else, it will be a good joke," thought the simple woodcutter. On reaching his hut, he told the wife all that he saw, he hoped that his wife by now would have calmed down. Instead his wife asked, "Where is the meat?" Her eyes fell on the bundle of cloth hung from his shoulder, she lunged at it, dug her hands in and before her husband could do anything, she took a chunk of meat and sunk her teeth into it and then the grind. The woodcutter was repulsed by the scene, in that moment he could see a ghoul chomping on a human prey. A strange mix of anger and fear pulsed though his veins and in that thoughtless moment, instinctively, his hands went for his axe and and the axe went for wife's stomach. As the axe cut though the belly fat, the stomach split open and put popped a baby not yet fully formed, hanging by a slender thread and in it's mouth a piece of meat. Three bodies fell to ground and only then the woodcutter understood his wife's wild demand. All this time, his wife was pregnant and they did not know. He should have known a pregnant woman and her taste buds at such times can make any such demands. A husband has to be patient, caring and fulfil all her demands in the best way he can. Woodcutter could have gone and bought a piece of roast meat and she would have accepted that too happily. The woodcutter now rued his fate and cursed his gods. His wife was dead, his baby was dead, his axe had tasted its own blood.

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